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All of these far-out views of the mind which express a vision of reality seen from different angles at the same time: that's Ibn al-'Arabi. Then you come to Al Hallaj, and he says, "I am not the eyes through which God sees. I am the Divine Glance." It is a matter of realization. It is like the different stages that we talked about. At one stage you are still in the maqam when you I are conscious of your being. If you are conscious of your being, at least think of yourself as being the instrument. When you are not conscious of your being, then it is the Divine Consciousness that comes through. That's when you can heal. There is so much about how to develop healing in your hands, and in your eyes, and in the water, and things like that, those are techniques. They are all important, but it is your state of consciousness that will make all the difference in your healing.
But the first essential thing is a pure channel for the breath, and that channel is the human body. If the channel is blocked, there is no possibility for the breath to pass freely. Air in itself is not bad, but when it touches the earth, it partakes of the influence of the earth, and therefore becomes polluted. So it is with the breath: breath in itself is pure, but if the channel through which it works is not right, it becomes impure.
The breath makes a circuit through the body, and the channel through which it makes the circuit is the spine. The mystics give this channel great importance; they call it the serpent. They picture it as a serpent holding its tail in its mouth. In almost all symbols the serpent represents the channel of the breath. In the terms of the Yogis it is called Kundalini.
When this channel is made clear by the method of breathing, then this is not only a help to the physical health, but it also opens up the faculties of intuition, and the doors that are within, where lies the real happiness of man. In order to clear this channel of all that blocks the way, one must follow the rules of mystical ablutions and of rhythmic breathing. People who cannot understand the subject and who hear and read things by halves, say that some chakras -- centers -- are opened by breathing exercises, and that many kinds of distress may be the consequence.
But looking at it from another point of view, one might as well say that the eyes of a child should never be opened, because he will thereby be exposed to temptations of all sorts. All virtue is in self-control; there is no virtue in being dead. Life is worthwhile only when a person leads it fully.
People look for phenomena, but there is no better phenomenon than breath itself, because breath is life and light, and in the breath is the source of life and light. In the mastery of the breath the secret of both worlds is hidden.
Then there is the question of how to develop this magnetism which is more powerful than all the other influences and qualities of man. The answer is that one should not try to develop the power of this magnetism; this in itself would be an error. To develop a quality in order to draw others? For that reason? It is a selfish reason, and selfishness stands in the way of magnetism. Magnetism comes from having no desire for any such powers, but allowing this quality of the heart to develop naturally; for love is the plant of God, and it needs no water to grow. It is life itself, it has power in itself to grow and to expand, if only we do not close our heart. What is necessary on the part of man is not to keep it from developing. And in cases where we find lack of sympathy in people, it is not that their heart did not have sympathy, but only that it is closed, either intentionally or unintentionally. To say that someone is loveless is like saying that there is no water beneath a certain piece of land. There is no land which has no water in its depths, and if one has the patience to dig deep enough there is no heart that will seem to be without sympathy.
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